


Derailed

by CorpseBrigadier



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorpseBrigadier/pseuds/CorpseBrigadier
Summary: Shadow finds the course of an ill dream diverted.
Relationships: Macías "Mash" Rene Figaro | Sabin Rene Figaro & Shadow
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	Derailed

He was back on the train. It was always the train: the train or the woods or the river. It blurred. Baram spoke in a measured voice, assuring everyone that nobody needed to get hurt—that everyone had loved ones they wanted to see—that everything was going to be fine. Somebody shook as they braced themselves against the car wall. The steam whistle sounded. Clyde felt that visceral stillness that comes from knowing the moment you inhabit cannot stay.  
  
And yet, it stayed. The stars that zipped past the windows seemed to repeat themselves, and the job never progressed. Baram repeated that everyone was going to be fine. A girl in Doman green huddled behind her mother’s skirts. Clyde didn’t move. He thought of the sound of leaves crushed under running boots, of the shout of the imperial guard. They passed a hill, and Baram said everything was going to be fine.  
  
The scene seemed to hover, repeating in fragments that would not resolve. Clyde knew something came next, and he was sick with apprehension. As he closed his eyes, as the gunfire and the rush of water sounded in his brain, he felt himself—he felt everything—suddenly spin and topple.  
  
He floated and fell as the train turned on its head, passengers and curtains flapping about like so many scattered bits of paper. He couldn’t find Baram, but as they were flung over and down through space, it seemed a strangely peaceful calamity.  
  
Tumbling through space, he fell suddenly into the sweat damp bed of an inn.  
  
“Hey! You okay?”  
  
Shadow blinked his eyes open as he felt the weight of his wounds once more. His vision came to focus on a mountainous heap of a man standing over him. Somewhere, Interceptor yelped.  
  
“You were having a nightmare,” Sabin said with obvious concern. “I thought you were about to throw yourself out of bed.”  
  
Shadow took a deep breath, suddenly aware of the bright pain of an injury along his ribs.  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“Well, if you say so. I’d just come over in case I needed to throw you back.” He grinned warmly. “You gave us enough trouble trying to find you this time—hate to lose you to a bad dream.”  
  
Shadow looked at him in silence, waiting for him to leave his bedside and busy himself somewhere else.  
  
Much to his irritation, he did not.

**Author's Note:**

> See my [profile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorpseBrigadier/profile) for notes on remixes, podfic, derivative works, and constructive criticism.
> 
> Written for the FFA prompt ["100 words of finding the thing you thought you'd lost."](https://fail-fandomanon.dreamwidth.org/408609.html?thread=2416108065)
> 
> * * *
> 
> **Fun Facts:** The implication that Sabin metaphysically supplexed Shadow out of a nightmare is completely intentional.


End file.
